One year, no internet- what’s reasonable?

[Mustlovebronte]

Hello and merry Christmas! I am thinking of quitting the internet for one year and pitching a non-fiction book/long form articles about the experience. This has been mulling in my head for the last few years and for different reasons 2025 would be an ideal time to do it. Similar to Ultra Processed People, I feel like companies have sucked us all into this insidious, life- sucking trap. I want to experience and write about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our digital world by using myself as a test subject (as well as getting expert opinion/latest research). My question is, if you were to pick up a book like this, would you expect the author to go offline completely and work around the inconveniences, or would you consider it reasonable that they checked their email and WhatsApp once per day (as an example). I am self employed but most customers email me which is something I would need to work around (and nothing's impossible). I guess I want to gauge what people would consider ‘cheating’. Thanks for reading and really looking forward to any opinions xx

Obviously, you'd have to go completely Internet free, otherwise you're writing a book about being on the Internet slightly more than huge numbers of people (probably older generation) who already use it less than once per day!

To be honest though, i wouldn't be interested in reading a book about it I'm afraid. I thought ultra processed people was a bit tedious as it was the same message told a million ways, and at least that had lots of different scientific studies to discuss. A whole book to say (I'm guessing) it was hard, but kind of worth it in some respects, but not sustainable to thay degree long term - no thanks.

would you consider it reasonable that they checked their email and WhatsApp once per day

This tickled me. Of course not. Those of us old enough to remember lived entirely without internet for years. 'Only' checking once a day is completely normal for many many people.

This book might be interesting in about 40 years, when all the people old enough to remember are dead. And 'only' checking once a day is a feat. But not now!

OP this is what actually going cold turkey on the internet and mobile phones looks like.

I think it could be interesting, albeit difficult. I was talking recently about travelling before the internet - it seemed a lot more exciting, not being able to look up places and virtually see them before you went there. The downside is that most tickets are digital these days.
I don't know about the emails, I guess they are different from using the internet so you would need to decide if you were offline completely or simply not using the web.
I don't know if I'd be interested in it or not. Ultra Processed People is quite in-depth - are you able to do the same?

You'd need to be completely offline otherwise it's as fake as the person who wrote about being a hermit when they were no such thing. What would be the point if you're still checking your mail? Any of us can do that. I don't have a phone, I don't have a tv, I'm not on facebook, I wasn't on MN until a couple of months ago. There are more people than you imagine who are not living their life on the internet.

Of course it would mean no email checking!!

Your self employed tax return will be a nightmare. But.... That's surely the point of your book? There are others out there who can't or don't want to access the online world but increasingly society is making it compulsory. Presumably you'd write about the difficulties encountered (as well as the gains) and maybe seek to interview others who feel digitally excluded?

Honestly. I remember life before the internet.
I really dont see the point of this.
It's a bit more time consuming to get things but you make up that time by not being able to scroll through shite!

Exactly. Everyone born pre 1990s lived like this.

It is a lot harder now as businesses expect you to be online.

No MN either OP, you’ll obviously never manage that if you can’t even start your book without us.

No internet at all. It can’t be that difficult or at least according to those dipstick parents who think no one under sixteen should have a smart phone. Live like a 15 year old with strict parents, it’ll do you the world of good according to them.

See, I remember those times too but I might potentially find it interesting, in a sort of 'gosh, I'd forgotten it was like that!' way.

It would have to be a total internet ban though, otherwise I think it's cheating really.

Do it for a day and then decide whether it's practical. For me, it really isn't. I need to pop to my parents because my mum has just received a 'hospital letter' in a link and can't access it.

Can you

• access healthcare without the internet? I would struggle around here.
• run your business?
• pay your bills?
• work your boiler?

Thompson Local Directories / Yellow Pages don't exist.
Try getting through on a helpline to many places.

In the nicest way possible, I know a few agents, I think if a celebrity or known writer did this then maybe it would be interesting….. but some random giving up the the internet for a year…

ooo what will happen???

it will be very difficult- lots of chapters on how unreasonable modern life banking and the like.
then you’ll miss a job offer or life partner. And be sad
then you will reach an acceptance ….
and realise just how amazing life is without the internet and how shallow the rest of us are.

then you will take up the internet again.

like yawn 10/10

I’m struggling to understand the angle. It won’t fill a whole book you just not using the internet. It will just be a litany of you phoning people won’t it….

And how will you fill the rest of it with interviews and opinion etc without the internet? How will you research? Contact people? Conduct interviews?

I don’t think the fact we’re over reliant and addicted is new news so as I say, struggling to understand the hook here.

Is there a huge public demand for reading about someone choosing to be mildly-massively inconvenienced?

Offline completely of course. Being on WhatsApp once a day is a massive cheat. You need to use snail mail or telephone instead. No mobile phone and just a landline would be the most radical experiment and stop you from being tempted to look.

If you have a problem with say your bank, I’d expect you to find out their phone number from a paper bill or call direct enquiries if that’s a thing anymore. I’d expect you to resort to old fashioned items like an address book and have things like coins on you so you can pay for parking.

I suspect that the conclusion to your experiment that life is much more time consuming without the internet and those who can’t/wont access it are spending increasing amounts of time on stuff that takes others seconds. For example I can take a photo of a cheque on my banking app rather than go into the branch and pay it in physically (nearest physical bank is several miles away)

On the other hand I think that you’ll be relieved to be away from social media unless you’re like a teen and lots of gossip is about things that have happened online.

I also wonder if it’s possible to not look at other people’s devices too. These days it’s easy to show someone a photo on your phone, instantly look up what year a movie came out or look up directions (how’s your map reading skills and do you have the patience for someone else to be the one giving directions?)

Come to think about it, I’d be interested in what prep you would need to be offline for a year and what the first app you open afterwards.

I think you will have a tough job doing it tbh. If you're going to do it, do it properly but honestly it will make life ridiculously inconvenient.

Banks and utility companies all charge money to have paper statements now. Banking especially will be annoying without an app as you will have to attend the branch and their opening hours are limited.

It means no WhatsApp, no Emails, no Satnav when you're lost.

No Spotify for music, no streaming services so just terrestrial TV. Yes Netflix is cheating even if it comes with your package.

Can you even get a TV package without Internet now? I think all TV boxes now are run off an internet connection so it may mean no TV either. Analogue system has long since been shut down.

Landline only phone.

No customer service chat so you have to wait in endless phone queues.

How will you access a doctors appointment? They're all online triage now so you'll end up spending hours of your life on hold and arguing with unsympathetic and unimpressed receptionists.

Technically even paying by debit card in Tesco is using the Internet.

The Web is far too entwined in our daily lives now for not having it to be anything but a pain in the arse. Fuck that for the sake of a book. I prefer my sanity intact.

I'd find it interesting, but like others I think it needs to be truly offline including no email or WhatsApp. I'm trying to reduce my own reliance on tech so i think reading about what was easy and what the problems were would be interesting to work out what options might be most feasible for me.

I think this has been covered. In all honesty it’ll go - some stuff is impossible, some stuff is much harder, you get left out of stuff cos of no social media, but then you cherish hobbies and get puke inducingly sentimental. Yawn.

You can’t have any internet as that would defeat the entire “point” of the book.

Everyone over the age of 50 can remember what it was like to live without the internet. Although it brings various problems, it also brings vastly more conveniences, which anyone with a lick of common sense can see. Nobody really wants to go back to a pre-internet lifestyle (although many of us like a little break from time to time) and the world as a whole certainly isn’t going back, so the point of the exercise is rather lost on me.

Would I read a book about someone who went vegan for a year 'except for breakfast'?

To be honest even doing it properly might be stretching it to think it's a book's worth of material. Would you unplug your smart meter, refrain from using RCS messages etc? I'd anticipate that you'll find it very socially isolating, which I might be somewhat interested to read about. Potentially too the effects on attention span and mental state - e.g. not worrying about all the random things we're told to worry about that we'd never hear about if not for the internet. I still think you'd need another hook though. Are there any Amish style communities you could find and write about? What are they up to?

See, I remember those times too but I might potentially find it interesting, in a sort of 'gosh, I'd forgotten it was like that!' way.

it won’t be ‘how it was’ though - society is now set up with the expectation of people accessing the internet. There’s no phone boxes, no yellow pages offline, no travel agents, no way to file a tax return offline or read your kids school newsletter etc etc etc

You might be able to get around some of these things by massively inconveniencing other people (asking school to print newsletter etc) but what’s the point?

If you are quitting the internet then you stop using a smart phone and cut off all wi-fi capability. It's everything or nothing. Not half half. And I wouldn't read it anyway, I can't imagine anything more boring, and besides which, I have to assume it won't be on Kindle.